Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Typed affidavit of service dated 9 March 1911, signed by Julius Maier and notarised by William A. Small, with a faint notice of motion showing through from the page beneath.
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U.S. vs. Gianni Alongi: threatening-letter case, Chicago, 1911 (case file)

National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says Gianni Alongi was accused in February 1911 of mailing three letters demanding $500 under threat of murder, in which he claimed to be a member of the Black Hand, and was found guilty and sentenced to five years and a $1,000 fine.

Date
1911-02/1911-03
Kind
case-file
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
49566908
Rights
A record of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, held by the National Archives at Chicago in Record Group 21. A United States government work, public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog lists access and use as unrestricted.

The National Archives catalogs this file as “U.S. vs. Gianni Alongi,” a criminal case file of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, with 89 digital pages. Its catalog note says Alongi was accused in February 1911 of sending three threatening letters to a man in Chicago, demanding $500 or threatening to murder him, and that in the letters Alongi “claims … to be a member of the Black Hand organization.” The note says he was found guilty and sentenced to five years and a $1,000 fine. The letters, translated from Italian, are in the file.

The page stored here is file page 1, a process-server’s affidavit sworn on 9 March 1911 before William A. Small, notary public, by Julius Maier, stating that he served the attached notice at a Chicago lawyer’s office. Faintly visible through the paper is the notice itself: a motion to set the cause down for trial on Friday, 10 March 1911, in a courtroom in the Federal Building at Chicago, signed by Edwin W. Sims, United States Attorney; it is partly illegible. It is a plate for the file; the letters are on other pages that were not stored.

The claim of membership is the letter writer’s, as the catalog summarises it; the conviction was for the mail offence.

itemThe United States vs. Pietro Mecca and Paul Mennite: threatening-letter case, Chicago, 1915 (case file)National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says Mecca and Mennite were accused of mailing letters threatening to kill a man and his family and to bomb his home unless he paid $300; both were sentenced to five years at Leavenworth.itemThe United States vs. Salvatore Lo Bue: threatening-letter case, Chicago, 1915 (case file)National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says Lo Bue was accused of mailing letters demanding $1,000 from Frank D'Amico on pain of death to a family member and the destruction of his house; the file holds letters with drawings of an attack and of a tomb.itemThe United States vs. William Brown: 'Black Hand' mail case, Chicago, 1920 (case file)National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says William Brown was accused of mailing letters threatening to kill a woman unless she paid $500, and was found guilty and sentenced to five years at Leavenworth. The court's commitment form labels the offence '(Black Hand)'.itemPost Office album (1916), volume 2: Chicago black-hand letter sentences, 1912 to 1915Entries in the 1916 Post Office album record federal sentences at Chicago for mailing black-hand letters: two men in January 1912, one in February 1914, and Paul Mennite and Pietro Mecca on 16 August 1915, each to five years at Leavenworth.